monism

Indeed, Whatever Happened to the Soul? is an attempt to establish a perspective on human nature that would allow for greater resonance between science and faith. We have tried to describe the nature of humans from the perspective of disciplines ranging from biology to theology in a way that is reconcilable and congruent. Our attempt has been, in every case, to achieve descriptions that both represent the current state of knowledge in the discipline and harmonize with the descriptions from the other disciplines. In order to increase by a few degrees the warming relationship between science and faith, we have attempted to sound a multi-disciplinary resonant chord (to mix metaphors).

Our core theme - the key of the resonant chord - is a monistic, or holistic, view of humans. In order to avoid confusion with reductionistic or materialistic forms of monism, which we do not wish to espouse, as well as to denote a particular form of monism, we have chosen the label "nonreductive physicalism" to represent our common perspective. Thus, statements about the physical nature of human beings made from the perspective of biology or neuroscience are about exactly the same entity as statements made about the spiritual nature of persons from the point of view of theology or religious traditions. We would disavow the opinion that human science speaks about a physical being, while theology and religion speak about a spiritual essence or soul.